The Colonel raised himself upon his saddle, and screened his eyes from
the moonshine.

"By Jove, you're right there, ma'am. There are men over yonder."

They could all see them now, a straggling line of riders far ahead of
them in the desert.

"They are going in the same direction as we," cried Mrs. Belmont, whose
eyes were very much better than the Colonel's.

Cochrane muttered an oath into his moustache.

"Look at the tracks there," said he; "of course, it's our own vanguard
who left the palm grove before us. The chief keeps us at this infernal
pace in order to close up with them."

As they drew closer they could see plainly that it was indeed the other
body of Arabs, and presently the Emir Wad Ibrahim came trotting back to
take counsel with the Emir Abderrahman. They pointed in the direction in
which the vedettes had appeared, and shook their heads like men who
have many and grave misgivings. Then the raiders joined into one long,
straggling line, and the whole body moved steadily on towards the
Southern Cross, which was twinkling just over the skyline in front of
them. Hour after hour the dreadful trot continued, while the fainting
ladies clung on convulsively, and Cochrane, worn out but indomitable,
encouraged them to hold out, and peered backwards over the desert
for the first glad signs of their pursuers. The blood throbbed in his
temples, and he cried that he heard the roll of drums coming out of the
darkness. In his feverish delirium he saw clouds of pursuers at their
very heels, and during the long night he was for ever crying glad
tidings which ended in disappointment and heartache. The rise of the sun
showed the desert stretching away around them, with nothing moving upon
its monstrous face except themselves. With dull eyes and heavy hearts
they stared round at that huge and empty expanse. Their hopes thinned
away like the light morning mist upon the horizon.

It was shocking to the ladies to look at their companion and to think
of the spruce, hale old soldier who had been their fellow-passenger from
Cairo. As in the case of Miss Adams, old age seemed to have pounced upon
him in one spring. His hair, which had grizzled hour by hour during his
privations, was now of a silvery white. White stubble, too, had obscured
the firm, clean line of his chin and throat. The veins of his fare were
injected and his features were shot with heavy wrinkles. He rode
with his back arched and his chin sunk upon his breast, for the old,
time-rotted body was worn out, but in his bright, alert eyes there was
always a trace of the gallant tenant who lived in the shattered house.
Delirious, spent, and dying, he preserved his chivalrous, protecting
air as he turned to the ladies, shot little scraps of advice and
encouragement at them, and peered back continually for the help which
never came.

An hour after sunrise the raiders called a halt, and food and water
were served out to all. Then at a more moderate pace they pursued
their southern journey, their long, straggling line trailing out over
a quarter of a mile of desert. From their more careless bearing and the
way in which they chatted as they rode, it was clear that they thought
that they had shaken off their pursuers. Their direction now was east
as well as south, and it was evidently their intention after this long
detour to strike the Nile again at some point far above the Egyptian
outposts. Already the character of the scenery was changing, and they
were losing the long levels of the pebbly desert, and coming once more
upon those fantastic, sunburned black rocks and that rich orange sand
through which they had already passed. On every side of them rose
the scaly, conical hills with their loose, slaglike _dйbris_,
and jagged-edged khors, with sinuous streams of sand running like
watercourses down their centre. The camels followed each other, twisting
in and out among the boulders, and